When The Pilot's Away
by ThatBlueScreenGuy
Summary: Joker's off at the bathroom, and Samuel decides to sit in his chair. It goes horribly wrong. (Stupid little story I came up with in the middle of the night)


Samuel strode through the CIC like a man on a mission. Well, he was on a mission. A mission with Shepard, to defeat a rouge Specter agent, stop the evil robots from destroying the galaxy, and to save all the innocent people.

When he thought about it like that, it sounded a bit ridiculous. Something straight out of a movie. A movie probably starring Arnold Schwarzenegger… But that was besides the point. The point was, that Samuel strode through the CIC with a purpose. No one would stop him now, and any of the crewmen that got in his way, quickly moved themselves before they got run over by the motivated, unstoppable force that was Samuel Nolan!

For the great, unstoppable, unmatchable, incredibly sexy, and not at all overly dramatic Samuel was off. Off to see Joker.

So the two of them could bicker about stuff.

Admittedly, not as epic as Samuel would hope it to be… But everyone is the hero of their own story, and Samuel's story is an epic! That of the scale of Game of Thrones, and the Divine Comedy! And Dr. Suess! (No, seriously. Even after all this time, the good doctor is still relevant. Look it up.) So he may have to embellish his tale from time to time… There isn't a rule anywhere that says that eating lunch can't be an event of colossal proportions!

Samuel's confident steps led him to the cockpit, where upon he grabbed the Pilot's chair, spun it around, and…

Saw that it was empty.

Samuel frowned. He had expected Joker to be there. There was rarely a time that the Normandy's pilot wasn't in this seat, and not just because he flew the massive war machine. Joker was a cripple, after all, and incredibly lazy to boot. Joker had once said that, if it were up to him, he would have designed the Normandy's pilot chair to double as a toilet, so he would minimize the amount of time he spent out of the cockpit. Joker didn't like to move around too much, and Samuel, being a fellow couch potato, had wholly agreed that the engineers of the Normandy hadn't been very considerate.

And yet, here Samuel stood, looking at an empty pilot chair. Samuel wasn't really sure what to make of it. He had seen Joker out of the chair before, of course. But he had never actually seen the _chair_ lack it's pilot. It felt strangely wrong to be staring at the empty chair, as though some fundamental rule had somehow been broken. Almost like if the sun suddenly disappeared, or small puppies stopped looking cute. It was just wrong.

There weren't that many things that could get Joker out of his chair. Devouring food, releasing the excess, and sleep were pretty much the only ways to get the pilot out of the cockpit. Since it was the Normandy's day cycle, and it was well past lunch, then it would only stand to reason that Joker was out to the bathroom.

Samuel nodded his head firmly, content with deducing the answer. He would come back later, then, to complain with Joker, and to talk about the mission, and asking what that button did…

A thought suddenly struck Samuel. It wasn't a very smart thought, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Too many times had he asked Joker what that big flashy light had meant, only to receive the answer of "Stuff" from the pilot.

And it would only be for a few minutes. Only until Joker got back. And he wouldn't touch anything, he promised!

Samuel frowned at himself. Okay, now he was just sounding like a guilty child.

Samuel sat in the chair.

He spun the chair around to face the head of the ship, looking all around him, soaking in the feeling of what it was like to be _the head _of a ship. Sure, Shepard said where to go, but it was _Joker_ that took them there. It was _Joker_ that allowed them to travel thousands, maybe even millions, of lightyears at a time, and it was _Joker_ who always made sure they got away from anyone chasing them.

Shepard might be the voice of the ship, but Joker was it's _brain_.

Samuel could see, just from sitting in that chair, why Joker liked to be a pilot so much.

Samuel gave a sigh of content through his nose and smiled. That chair was really something to marvel at, if it could give someone that kind of feeling just by sitting in it. A wonder of it's own, truly.

Well, he's had his fun. It was time to get up, and wait for Joker in the co-pilot's chair, or as Joker called it, "The Bitch Seat".

Samuel spun the chair to the side, pushed off the armrests, got up, and…

Nicked a button with his elbow.

The button, of which, for some reason controlled gravity.

The effects were immediate. Samuels gentle pushing force off the chair caused him to listlessly float away from the chair and towards the wall he was facing. Samuel flailed his arms, an instinctual reaction to suddenly being off balance, and he could hear the consternation of the other crewmembers down the hall. Worry started to play on Samuel's face as he gently bumped into the wall, banging his nose.

Okay, there was no need to panic. None whatsoever. It was a simple mistake, one that can be easily rectified. All he had to do was press the same button again, and the artificial gravity drives will kick back in. Simple. Nothing could go wrong.

Samuel had to resist banging his head against the wall. He should really know better than to think things like that…

Samuel repositioned himself on the wall, so that his legs were braced on it's surface, ready to kick him back towards the console. He he looked back in that direction, he saw that the chair had somehow spun to have it's back facing the cockpit entrance and stay facing that way, decreasing the target size that he could hit to get him close to the console.

And somehow broke one of the laws of physics in the process.

Samuel kicked himself off the wall, his arms held out straight, his spine ramrod stiff. He reached for the chair to grab onto, and missed. Panicked slightly, he started to flail once again, and hit yet another button.

This time a voice came over the ship's intercom, saying, "Initiating FTL," and started to count down from twenty.

Samuel's eyes widened in fear. They were currently in orbit around a planet, and the lack of gravity would be annoyingly harmless. But if there was movement, at the speed of light no less, then the ship would fly without anyone attached to it, and all the people floating around would be spattered against a nearby wall.

So, in short, not good.

Samuel impacted with the wall, scrambled to get his feet braced, and quickly launched himself back at the chair, not even bothering to see if he was aimed correctly.

When he reached the chair again, he successfully grabbed it this time, and the chair spun around, the back turning to face the Bitch Seat, a ninety degree difference from where it was.

Samuel's eyes scanned the console frantically, looking for the button that disengaged the FTL systems. When his eyes landed on a flashing orange button, he took a leap of faith and pressed it.

"_-3, 2… FTL disengaged," _the ship's VI said.

Samuel breathed a sigh of relief. That was close. Thankfully there would be no pancaked crewmembers any time soon. All he had to do was find the button that turned the gravity back on. Simple.

He turned his eyes back onto the console, eyes roaming around for something that might hint at where the button he desired was located. When his eyes fell upon the holographic button with the letter "AL" on it, he had a gut feeling that that was what he was looking for. I mean, it had the "A" for "artificial", and everything! He wasn't sure what the "L" stood for… but that didn't matter.

He pressed the button.

And was rewarded with a terrible sucking sound as the only door between the Normandy's interior and the vacuum of space was opened.

Or maybe it he should have used his common sense, and realise that "AL" meant "AIRLOCK"!

The suction of the void was incredibly strong, and it took all Samuel had to hang onto the chair and not get thrown out. He cast his gaze back towards the point of suction long enough to see a red shirt fly right out into the emptiness of space.

It was a good thing no one was wearing that… Someone might've gotten spaced.

Samuel, using all the energy he had left, pulled himself over the back of the chair, held himself as steady as he could, and reached for the "AL" button. He flicked his hand in an attempt to get luck, but got no success. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he stretched his arm enough to be able to hit the button, closing the air lock. The sucking sensation ceased, and there was a gentler hissing sound as the automated systems repressurized the Normandy to regulation standards.

Samuel, at this point, was feeling rather desperate to find the button that turned the gravity back on. He would give anything just to get his feet back on the ground, and his orientation back to normal. He reached for the console, and prayed to whatever holy beings that were out there that this would be the one that turned the gravity back on.

Of course, it wasn't.

A giant warning klaxon blared through the Normandy, deafening to anyone who heard, and a flashing red light came from seemingly nowhere to color the cockpit. "Oh, come on," Samuel whined. He reached out to hit another button. This time, the klaxon shut off, and the sound of disco music from _centuries_ ago started to play through the speakers. Samuel whimpered in frustration and self-loathing, and hit _yet another_ button. The huge red light stopped, and turned into a plethora of other colors, seemingly random in their color, casting almost club-like lighting across the cockpi-

Wait a minute…

Were their _genuinely _buttons that turned the Normandy into… a disco club?

Samuel was fairly sure that that wasn't standard Alliance regulations…

A scowl found it's way onto Samuel's face, and he yelled, "You know what? Fuck it!" And then he hit four random buttons on the console.

The lights stopped. The music ceased. And Samuel fell to the floor between the chair and a side panel of the console.

Samuel just groaned. "I don't even want to know…" he said into the floor. He crawled his way out of his cramped position between chair and console, and just lay in the center of the cockpit floor. He wasn't sure how long he just laid there, but eventually, footsteps sounded across the floor; two sets of them. One was light and confident, the other at a rather odd beat and heavy. He knew who was coming before they even got within eyesight.

Shepard and Joker stood over Samuel, watching him wallow in self pity. When he looked into their faces, he could see the annoyance the felt, and could tell that there would be hell to pay for what he's been doing.

Samuel gave a pathetic chuckle. "Um," he said, trying for a smile. He's pretty sure he failed. "I can explain?"

Neither pilot nor Commander looked impressed at the statement, and they continued to stare at him intensly as he stood himself back onto his feel.

He faced the two of them. "Well," he started, "you see. What happened was-" and he made a break for it.

Only to be stopped by the Commander's foot getting in his way and tripping him.

He landed gracelessly onto the ground, face first, and groaned in pain. After a moment, he asked, "I'm not going to walk away from this one clean, am I"

He could almost _feel_ the smile that spread across Joker's face, and Shepard said, "Oh, hell no." She then moved over to his legs, grabbed a single ankle, and dragged him through the CIC, face down in the floor.

He took it back. He had no idea how Joker liked being a pilot.


End file.
